Out Now from Half-handed Cloud: Gathered Out Of Thin Air
November 15th, 2019 , by Asthmatic Kitty
Half-handed Cloud’s Gathered Out Of Thin Air is the culmination of nearly a decade of songwriting, recording, and collecting. We’ve been slowly trickling out batches of songs from this compilation, but at long last you can hear it in its glory on 2xLP or via your favorite digital platform.
The compilation includes songs like “Naaman,” which is a cover of an unreleased Sufjan Stevens song, sent to John Ringhofer (Half-handed Cloud) back in early 2001, “Nativity Costume (2000 Year’s Eve),” a holiday song of John’s that found its way into a cover song for the end credits of the video game Hypnospace Outlaw, “California” a cover of a song by Norwegian band I Was A King, a newly-mastered version of “Train Yourselves In Godliness,” from 2015’s self-released digital-only Foiled EP N°1, “Stumbled On A Holiness,” which is from Half-handed Cloud’s previously-unreleased Wearing The Path EP, “Here We Go Transformation,” which was previously only released with a zine, and over 50 other singles, non-album EPs, Christmas songs, and rarities from 2010-2019 – gathered into one place just for you.
Listen here, or order the 2xLP here or with your local record store. If you order through Asthmatic Kitty Records, we’ll include a limited edition set of four bookmarks, designed by John Ringhofer (Half-handed Cloud), while supplies last.
Denison Witmer to Release New Album: “American Foursquare”
September 27th, 2019 , by Asthmatic Kitty
This fall, Denison Witmer will release the first two singles from his 12thLP, American Foursquare,on Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty Records, with follow-up singles in the beginning of 2020.
The full album will be available digitally and physically in Spring 2020.
American Foursquareis a meditation on empathy, on love, and on the meaning of home.
Denison began writing American Foursquare after he and his family relocated from Philadelphia to his hometown of Lancaster in 2014, trading their 800-square-foot row home for a 100-year-old house on the edge of Lancaster City. Denison wrote and recorded the songs as a response to the major life changes of moving and domestication, all the while taking a general hiatus from music to start a carpentry business and spend time with his wife and small children.
Denison named the record after the architectural style of the “new” house. Designed in reaction to the ornament of late-nineteenth century architecture, the foursquare emphasizes simplicity and function, with an open four-by-four room layout and a balanced, boxy shape. It’s one of the most common styles of American architecture.
As Denison wrote and recorded these songs, the simplicity, ubiquity, and plain-spoken utilitarianism of the American Foursquare house became a centering stand-in metaphor for many of the themes on the record: loss, change, settling, transition.
Denison began recording American Foursquare with Thomas Bartlett (Sufjan Stevens, The National, Norah Jones) and finished/mixed in Seattle, WA with Andy Park (Death Cab For Cutie, Pedro The Lion, Noah Gundersen) with additional string arrangements and vocals by Abby Gundersen and electric guitar and mandolin by Aaron Campbell.
To make sure you hear news about the new singles, be sure to follow Denison Witmer on Spotify here, or Instagram here.
